


a river leading to the ocean

by pvwork



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 11:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16136750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pvwork/pseuds/pvwork
Summary: “You don’t have to do this,” Shiro had said.There had been no good way to sayI would do anything for youso instead Keith had just said, “I can make my own choices.”Or Shiro and Keith get married for the greater good of the galaxy.





	a river leading to the ocean

There were few things worse than having to sit in on meetings that you had no skin in.

Keith was feeling nostalgic about the arguments he had gotten into in the Castle of Lions. That had been at the beginning of everything. He should have appreciated it more at the time. 

Unfortunately, Keith had walked into this particular meeting with his eyes wide open, Shiro’s broad back leading the way. 

Keith did a quick scan of the room, then used the heads up display in his mask to check in with Regris. Nothing was amiss.

Keith watched as Shiro leaned forward and earnestly try to convince a skeptical Tarjeerian guild leader that a trade agreement with the Balmera would be beneficial. There had been a lot of hemming and hawing on the guild leader’s part and while he didn’t have a traditional face, the way his four arms were crossed defensively spoke volumes.

Keith did himself a solid and tuned out the actual discussion.

He tried to interpret the set of Shiro’s shoulders instead. Over the past few weeks, Keith had made watching Shiro into a hobby. It was nice when your job and your interests happened to intersect.

The Shiro he remembered from the Garrison had been like a mirrored lake, a polished presence with boots so shiny you could see your own reflection in them and posture so good it could’ve made a beauty pageant coach weep. That had been a different man. The man sitting in front of Keith now was no less driven, but he had become softer in so many uncountable ways. Shiro lingered over things now, like every sensation, even the bad ones, were worthy of consideration.

When the Balmeran contingent at the table raised their voices in unison to try and dictate their desired terms again, unchanged even after hours of negotiation, Shiro only seemed to regard them with wonder as if their obstinance was somehow admirable. 

Keith was just starting to get a stress headache from sheer frustration at the time wasted and he barely cared about the contents of the meeting itself.

“Let’s end things here today,” Shiro said at last. “We'll regroup tomorrow and see if we can’t work on an agreement that meets most of our needs.”

If the chairs were capable of scraping across the floor, then Keith was sure that the room would be filled with sounds of screaming legs as everyone immediately rose and moved towards the door as one. Where was this kind of coordination during the meeting, Keith thought.

Shiro remained seated, and he spun lazily in the hovering chair to face Keith.

“Hey, lover,” Shiro said.

That was new too. The pet names. It had taken some getting used to, but after a few weeks they’d made a sort of game of it. Shiro came up with more and more outrageous pet names, and Keith had to keep a straight face under the onslaught of ‘honey-bun’, ‘babycakes’, and, Keith’s personal favorite, ‘sugar lips’. That one in particular made Shiro laugh for minutes at a time, every time, and it was nice to hear him be joyful however fleetingly.

‘Lover’ was pretty tame. Keith inclined his head. He remained at parade rest with his hands loosely clasped at the small of his back, his feet shoulder length apart.  

A few stragglers were standing by the door chatting, so Shiro leaned forward and kissed Keith’s mask in the place where his mouth would have been.

There was no way Shiro could see that Keith was smiling behind his mask, but Shiro whispered “I win.” as he leaned back. Then, more loudly, he said, “So I was thinking I could make pizza bagels for lunch.” He was still holding Keith’s hand as they walked out of the room. “I’ve almost got the perfect recipe for replicator cheese. You won’t even be able to taste the difference.”

*

Sometimes, the fantasy that they had built around each other spilled over into reality like an overfull glass of water. In the privacy of their shared suite, Shiro didn’t have to touch Keith as he puttered around the kitchenette, but he put his hand on Keith’s side, his back or brushed his fingers along Keith’s arm as he reached for things on the shelves. Like the way he might with a real lover, someone he had touched intimately, and was comfortable sharing a lot of space with. It made Keith’s insides squirm. It was good Shiro felt comfortable around him, but there were times when Keith toyed with the idea of somehow explaining that he wanted these casual touches to stop not because he didn’t like them, but because he liked them too much. It made things that weren’t real feel more real than they had a right to be. 

It made Keith forget sometimes that they were just playing pretend. 

*

 

After lunch, Shiro stayed behind to go over his meetings notes with Kosmo curled up around his feet like a large, dangerous shag carpet capable of teleportation. With that tender domestic scene burned into the back of his eyelids, Keith headed towards the newest addition to the base, a makeshift greenhouse.

Antok and Regris were already inside with an Olkari engineer and a hovering, glowing green orb. From the orb, Pidge’s voice came through, “And you haven't seen any negative reactions caused by the switch to drip irrigation."

Keith froze in the doorway, taking it all in, but before long Antok had noticed him and turned to greet him.

“Riri called in the experts,” Antok said.

“Use my full name.” 

Regris aimed a smack at Antok. It turned into more of a caress when his hand landed on Antok’s shoulder and his fingers slid down the length of his arm slowly. Regris’s tail was wrapped around Antok’s the way other couples might absently lace their fingers together.

Seeing them together made Keith’s chest hurt. It was probably heartburn from the pizza bagels. 

“How do you like being bound?” Antok asked.

“It’s fine.”

“That’s good to hear!” Antok said. “I heard Kolivan tried to talk you out of it, but you followed your heart in the end.” 

“Is that Keith?” the Pidge-light asked. “What does being bound mean? Is Shiro there too?” A clamor came from the light as if a few different voices were shouting all at once.

Regris sighed. The sigh was really long, so long in fact, that Keith started to wonder where all that air came from. “Lan, why don’t you and I go check on those drip lines? Leave your communicator with Antok. He’ll take good care of it.”

Lan cleared their throat and hid an obvious grin behind their hand as they handed over the communicator.

“Hey, Pidge,” Keith said.

“You got Galra-married?”

“I missed you too,” Keith said.

“Thanks,” the Pidge-light said. She was a heat-seeking missile, undeterred by Keith’s feeble attempt to distract her. “To who?” 

Keith coughed into his wrist and wished Kosmo had come with him. He would only have to bury a hand in her soft fur in order to get away from all this. As things were, he was going to have to stand here explain to Pidge how he and Shiro got sham Galra-married for the sake of intergalactic politics.

“You don’t have to do this,” Shiro had said weeks ago. 

There had been no good way to say  _ I would do anything for you _ so instead Keith had replied as steadily as he could, “I can make my own choices.”

It had been for the best. Even without a contingent of his own, Shiro would be able to make promises as Earth’s first and only ambassador that carried the weight of the Blade’s power. And in turn, his presence in Blade of Marmora bases lent their advertised reputation of neutral ground, safe harbors from unmoored Galran warlords and space pirates, a sense of legitimacy.

Keith was trying to remind himself that it was a win-win situation. Kolivan hadn’t seen it like that at the time, but Keith didn’t hear him complaining about how smoothly things were going ever since Shiro had allied himself with them. To the galaxy at large, Shiro was still a former black paladin of Voltron, the fearless Champion from the battle rings, and both those titles carried with them their own sort of fame outside of his official capacity as a Terran diplomat. 

He tried to explain it to Pidge, but she seemed about as skeptical as Kolivan had been. 

“So that's how it is,” Pidge said. Her tone was deceptively mild. It was quiet wherever she was now. Antok had gone to check on his potato plants, so Keith was alone with Pidge's careful voice filtering into the room from across the stars. "You do know that there's more than one way to keep someone close, right?"

His first kiss with Shiro had swept through Keith like a summer storm in the desert, undeniable and heady as the atmosphere broke apart to make way for rain. Even though it had been for show. They'd done it with ceremonial ash and water between their clasped palms and Keith hadn’t had the words to explain how there was so much he wanted from Shiro, and the least of those desires was the promise of forever, but now. Now, his heart had made space for Shiro, a space that had no edges, no limits, and carried within it the simple resolve to hold Shiro in the highest regard, to consider him in all relevant decisions. So Keith said, declared, explained, “I’m in love with him. I can't imagine a life without him.” 

*

Keith used to be an early riser, but now the fall of Shiro’s hair, the way his lashes fanned across his cheek, the press of skin against skin, made Keith reluctant to get out of bed. He lost a lot of time in the mornings watching Shiro breathe and relishing the feel of their skin, sleep warm and pressed close. At this point, Keith was confident the whorl of his fingertips carried the sense memory of Shiro’s skin, his lungs, the shared rhythm of their breathing where they touched in the dark.

*

“Wake up, Keith,” Shiro whispered.

Keith opened his eyes.

Shiro was carrying a breakfast tray laden with tiny tater tots and a heaping mass of protein goo wrangled into the rough shape and texture of scrambled eggs.

“What’s the occasion,” Keith mumbled.

“A cancelled meeting.”

“Who cancelled?”

“Regris sent a message earlier.” Shiro shrugged and Keith let the subject drop. Regris had probably twisted some arms in that quiet way of his. 

“Kosmo?”

Kosmo yipped from under the bed. Keith leaned over to look for her and was met with a pair of glowing blue eyes.

“I fed her this morning and she dug out the thigh bone from the care package Krolia sent from Orion.”

Satisfied everything was in order, Keith poured hot sauce over the eggs and took a bite. The hot sauce was a little sour and a lot salty with a kick to it that made the entire inside of his mouth burn. It was perfect.

“This is really good,” Keith said. “Have you tried some?" He lifted the spoon to Shiro’s mouth, and Shiro seemed to wrap his lips around the spoon in slow motion. The curl of his pink tongue as he licked his lips was the sweetest thing Keith had seen all morning. 

“Wow, that is good,” Shiro said. “Feeling pretty proud of myself right now.”

“You should,” Keith croaked. His mouth felt dry, parched, unquenchable. He reached out for a sip of orange juice from the glass. Shiro tapped his wrist after he took a sip.

"Are you okay?"

Okay was such a subjective state to be in. What did that even mean. Everyday seemed filled with loaded moments drenched with the pain of decision making, a push-pull, a existential tug-of-war between what Keith wanted and what Keith thought he could have. It was maddening and perfect and he wasn’t sure that there was a graceful way to find an end to all these situations Keith found him in, captivated by the bits and pieces of Shiro that he was allowed, that he allowed himself, when all he wanted was everything and anything.

“Do you love me?” Keith blurted out.

"Of course, I love you.” Shiro said. Then he paused and seemed to consider his words before adding, “Like a brother?” It sounded like a question and made something hopeful stir in Keith’s heart. Shiro was sitting at the edge of their bed,  _ their bed _ , his hand on Keith’s knee for balance and his hand tightened as if he was seeking comfort in the solidness of Keith’s presence. It was familiar. It made Keith’s chest ache in a familiar way. 

“What if I didn’t love you,” Keith said slowly, “like a brother.”

Shiro’s hands were careful as he ran his free hand through Keith’s hair. It was getting longer, and falling into his face, but Shiro tucked a few strands behind his ear with a tenderness that snatched Keith’s breath away. “That’d be okay be with me,” Shiro said. Keith sat as still as a statue as Shiro lifted the breakfast tray away. It felt like a metaphor. It felt like a weight moving off of his chest, the slow sounds of Shiro breathing were all he wanted to hear.

“Just like that?"

"It's not hard to want you, Keith." Shiro was grinning as he pulled Keith closer and started to pull at the hem of Keith’s sleep shirt. He had stolen it from Shiro, a worn Garrison PT shirt that was older than Kosmo, and so, so comfortable. "Hey, can I kiss you?"

“Yes,” Keith breathed. It felt like he had run around the base twice without stopping, like he had pulled a ship out of a nose dive at the last second when all the sensors were blaring. Like something he had thought was impossible might actually be his after all.

The kiss was a revelation. Keith’s hands had a mind of their own, moving to cup Shiro’s neck, the back of his head, and pull him closer still until they were breathing the same air even when they pulled apart, breathing hard. There had been other kisses in front of other people, but here, where it was quiet and still and theirs, there didn’t have to be a reason for Shiro’s hands on his side, for the way Keith couldn’t quite bring himself to let go of Shiro now that he was so near and precious.

“When did you know?” Shiro asked.

Keith leaned closer to breathe him in. He was so familiar, but the moment was so new, this thing between them felt well-worn and solid, but also bright, bright with unsaid things that would soon be revealed, shining with the sure and certain light of a yellow star undimmed by millenia, like love in dark places, lit up, blown open. “When I wanted it all to be real,” Keith replied.

 


End file.
